Leaving the Past
by JR2
Summary: Why didn’t Terry ever take Commissioner Gordon up on her suggestion of tracking down Nightwing? My first BB fic, so please feel free to R&R.


Leaving the Past   
JR  
  
Disclaimer: Any characters you recognize are the  
property of DC Comics, and are therefore not  
mine. This story is not for profit.   
  
Notes: This story takes place in the Batman  
Beyond universe. However, a great deal of the  
'historical' stuff will be pulled from the comics  
rather than the Batman animated series. For the  
sake of argument, assume that Terry is in his senior  
year of high school. Set a month after the events  
of 'BB:ROTJ'.  
  
Summary: Why didn't Terry ever take  
Commissioner Gordon up on her suggestion of  
tracking down Nightwing?   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Unhide the truth, rattle the bones,  
This time I should have left the past alone..."  
Mistake of Youth -- A. Ashmore  
  
Gotham City, November 2049  
  
It was just another typical night of patrol.   
Up to that point, the mean streets of Gotham had  
offered up two armed robberies, one attempted  
homicide, and one attempted rape. Nothing that  
Batman couldn't handle. As far as Terry McGinnis  
-- the teenager inside the bat-suit -- was concerned,  
this was a good thing.  
  
"It's almost one a.m. and it's been quiet for  
the past hour," Terry said softly, knowing that the  
microphone concealed within the mask he wore  
would relay his quiet words. "I've got mid-terms  
tomorrow, so if it's alright with you, I think I'll  
call  
it a night."  
  
"Alright," the voice of Bruce Wayne  
replied. Along with the microphone, the current  
version of the Batsuit was also equipped with a  
transceiver to allow two-way communication  
between the former and present incarnations of  
Batman. "Good luck tomorrow."  
  
"Thanks," Terry replied. With the ease of  
long practice, the youth turned in mid-flight,  
heading back to the warehouse rooftop where his  
civilian clothes were safely hidden. "I'm going to  
need all the help I can get."  
  
"Have you been neglecting your studies?"  
ayne gruffly questioned, his voice practically  
dripping with disapproval.   
  
"No! I haven't!" Terry quickly defended.   
"It's just that tomorrow is Trig and History -- two  
of my least favourite subjects."   
  
"I'll remember you said that the next time  
you try either pushing the flight capabilities of that  
suit past the design limitations..."   
  
"Hey, I don't do it *that* often," Terry  
interrupted in his own defense.  
  
"...or the next time you try to track down  
one of your...predecessors without my knowledge  
or consent."  
  
The com-channel was silent for a few  
painfully long moments. Terry was almost grateful  
when the warehouse that was his destination came  
into sight. He waited until he set down upon the  
rooftop before replying to the accusation the older  
man had thrown at him.  
  
"So you know about that, huh?"  
  
"That you spent four hours yesterday  
searching the net for information on Dick  
Grayson?"  
  
Terry swallowed audibly. There were  
times he really resented the old man's almost  
omniscient knowledge. It was that resentment that  
finally managed to turn the icy-sensation of fear  
that had been present in his gut since Bruce's  
revelation into the burn of anger.  
  
"How could you know that?" Terry  
practically growled. Reaching into a crevasse  
between two central air conditioning units, he  
pulled out his backpack with a great deal more  
force than was necessary. "What, do you have  
cameras on me at school now or something?"  
  
"Don't get melodramatic, McGinnis," Bruce  
answered coldly. "In your searches, you tapped  
into protected WaynePowers files -- twice.   
WaynePowers security has long standing orders to  
inform me personally of any such breaches, in case  
of any potential kidnapping plots. Imagine my  
surprise when I learned that, this time, they'd traced  
the source of the inquiries to a terminal in Hamilton  
Hill High."  
  
Terry did not imagine the censure in the old  
man's tone. He'd been sloppy and had been  
caught. Looking back, Terry knew that he should  
have waited for Max, as her computer skills far  
exceeded his own. But Max had been unavailable,  
too busy studying for her exams to lend a hand on a  
search for data on a matter that was not life-  
threatening. Once again, Terry's own impatience  
had come back to bite him in the ass, and it was  
time for him to brace for the teeth marks.  
  
"I'm sorry," the teen apologized. "I know  
I should have come to you first, but whenever I ask  
you about any of your former...team, you always  
cut me off."  
  
"That's not..."  
  
"That's not what?" Terry quickly  
interjected. "True? Oh sure, you drop their  
'Bat-names' occasionally when you mention old  
cases, but you never talk about the *people* they  
were. Hell, if it hadn't of been for the Joker  
coming back, I probably never would have known  
what happened to Tim Drake, and even then, I had  
to practically drag the information out of  
Commissioner Gordon because you refused to tell  
me."  
  
"We've discussed this before, Terry," Bruce  
defended, "about the need for..."  
  
"...secrecy -- yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the  
drill," the teenager countered. Reaching into his  
backpack, he withdrew his jeans and t-shirt. "I'm  
in the masked vigilante club now, too, remember?"  
  
"How could I forget?" the old man  
answered wryly.  
  
"I understand your wanting to protect their  
privacy, but I've met with Mr. Drake a couple of  
times in the past few weeks. He actually seems to  
enjoy talking about his adventures as Robin now  
that he's out from under the Joker's influence. He  
mentions Grayson's name a lot. Hell, even  
Commissioner Gordon said that I should look up  
Nightwing someday. He's the only member of  
your Bat-clan I haven't met yet. Can you blame  
me for being curious?"  
  
"I suppose not," Bruce reluctantly  
conceded. "But that doesn't mean you should  
continue searching for him."  
  
"And why would that be?" Terry pointedly  
wondered aloud. "I have to admit what I did find  
only raised my curiosity. According to the  
Bludhaven Police records, Officer Richard Grayson  
disappeared without a trace over twenty years ago.   
Since the file is still open, it's pretty safe to say  
that  
he was never found. Funny, but according the  
newspaper accounts, Bludhaven's resident  
cowl-and-tight guy stopped making appearances  
around the same time, and hasn't been seen or  
heard from since. Fortunately -- or unfortunately,  
depending on how you look at it -- so many people  
go missing in Bludhaven, nobody ever made the  
connection between the disappearance of Dick  
Grayson and Nightwing."  
  
"Leave it alone, Terry..."  
  
"My first suspicion was that something  
might have happened," the youth speculated.   
"After all, Grayson must have had a *lot* of  
enemies from both his day and night jobs."   
  
"McGinnis, I said drop this," Bruce  
growled, a dangerous edge creeping into to his  
tone of voice.  
  
"But then I thought about the couple of  
times that both the Commissioner and Mr. Drake  
have talked about him. Both of them talk about  
him in the present tense, which I doubt they would  
do unless they knew for certain that Grayson is still  
alive somewhere."  
  
"Enough!" The roar of the voice in his ear  
was enough to momentarily deafen Terry, but that  
was not what left the teenager reeling. What  
shocked the young vigilante to the very core of his  
being was the fact that, for the first time in over  
eighteen months of working together, this was the  
first time Terry had ever heard the old man  
completely lose control of his emotions.  
  
'Whoa!' the teenager thought to himself,  
opting for the smart choice of remaining silent for  
the time being. Judging by the ominous lack of  
sound coming through the receiver next to his ear,  
Terry could only assume that his mentor also opted  
for a verbal 'time out'. Neither of them would  
ever know whether it was minutes or hours that  
passed before the older man finally recovered  
himself enough to speak.  
  
"I...," Bruce began in a tired voice.   
"What... happened with Nightwing...it...was...in the  
past."  
  
'Damn!' For a minute there, Terry foolishly  
thought that his mentor was about to give in, to tell  
the story the teenager was desperate to hear. Of  
course not, Terry fumed.   
  
Oh, how he hated how the old man and his  
secrets! Wayne's silence usually left Terry  
frustrated, but this time, he didn't know whether to  
scream or to put his batsuit- enhanced gauntlets  
through the nearest wall. What angered the  
teenager the most, however, was the fact that  
Bruce must have known *exactly* how annoyed  
Terry was at that moment.  
  
"Mc...*Terry*," the older man amended.   
His voice was softer, missing that iron-will quality  
Bruce often used to emotionally distance himself  
when forced to talk about anything that approached  
a personal subject. "I'm...asking you, please, just  
let it go."  
  
"If I promise to drop this," the teenager  
blurted, his curiosity overwhelming his better  
judgement. "Will you at least answer one question  
for me?"  
  
For once, Terry took the old man's silence  
as permission to continue.  
  
"Nightwing's leaving...was that your  
decision or his?"  
  
Only moments ago, Terry had considered  
Bruce's silence as an ally. However with each  
eternally long second that passed, the teenager  
could feel his mentor's emotional shields rising.   
Just when Terry thought that he had pushed too  
far, too fast; he received a hell of a surprise.  
  
"Dick Grayson is my son. Anything else  
isn't important," Bruce finally answered in an odd  
tone of voice, but seconds later, it returned to its  
normal, gruff manner. "Check in before you start  
your patrol tomorrow."  
  
"Uh, yeah, sure," Terry replied, his voice  
sounding just as distracted as his thoughts.   
  
The soft hissing sound of the open channel  
ceased, letting Terry know that his mentor had  
signed off for the night, leaving the youth alone  
with his thoughts.  
  
'Well, that was weird,' the teenager mused  
silently. While Bruce's admission had fallen vastly  
short of what Terry had been hoping for, it was,  
nevertheless, more than he would have normally  
expected from the old man. That Bruce had said  
anything at all on the subject was a glaring  
indication of just how important the Grayson guy  
was to Bruce Wayne.  
  
Besides, it wasn't as if Terry had to quit  
investigating altogether. He could lay low for a  
while, wait it out until the extra security the old  
man was sure to have installed around Grayson's  
record was lowered his guard again. Hell, he  
could even ask Max to get on it right after exams.   
  
  
After all, part and parcel of accepting the  
Mantle of the Bat was an abhorrence of leaving a  
mystery unsolved. The original Batman had long  
been considered by many to be the 'World's  
Greatest Detective', a skill which the original caped  
crusader had instilled and honed in all of his  
proteges, including Terry. And, at that moment, it  
was that training that clashed with the teenager's  
instinct that his mentor would be *very* displeased  
if Terry were to continue his search for Nightwing.   
Not that Bruce's displeasure ever stopped Terry  
from a chosen course of action in the past.  
  
Unfortunately, there was one additional  
factor in this internal battle, one that not even the  
threat of Bruce Wayne's ire could overcome --  
Terry's own curiosity. And that was a factor that  
could cost the young man the war in this clash of  
wills with his mentor.  
  
But Bruce had *asked* Terry to let the  
subject drop. That alone was enough to make the  
teenager pause. He stood there for a moment,  
trying and failing to recall any other occasion that  
the old man had ever *asked* him to do anything.   
Ordered him? Yes. Commanded him? That was  
a daily occurrence. Bullied him? That happened  
more often than Terry wanted to admit. But  
making a *request* of Terry? That was something  
utterly new and foreign to the teenager.  
  
And it was also a big, fat indicator of just  
how badly Bruce wanted Terry to stop nosing  
around the twin subjects of Nightwing and Dick  
Grayson. To his credit, Terry actual gave Bruce's  
plea a few moments of genuine consideration.   
Could he do it? Could he leave the puzzle of Dick  
Grayson alone?  
  
Dressed back in his street clothes, the  
teenaged vigilante shoved the Batsuit into his  
backpack. If he hurried, he might still make home  
in time to get a few extra hours of cramming in  
before getting some sleep. Heading for the  
stairwell door that he had propped open earlier, the  
teen started the short walk back to his mother's  
apartment.  
  
'He *asked*,' Terry thought, finally  
reaching a decision on the matter. 'That's enough  
for me...'  
  
...at least, for the time being...  
  
--finis, for now --  
  



End file.
